Bharti Infratel gains over 2% after Nettle buys 4.94% stake in co

Shares of Bharti Infratel gained over 2.50 per cent in Thursday’s morning trade after Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said its subsidiary Nettle Infrastructure Investments has acquired an additional 4.94 per cent stake in Bharti Infratel for Rs 2,882.32 crore.

With this transaction, Bharti Airtel’s total direct and indirect stake in its mobile tower arm Infratel has increased to 41.66 per cent, according to a regulatory filing.

The scrip traded 2.78 per cent up at Rs 231.05 at around 10.26 am (IST), while the benchmark BSE Sensex traded 0.46 per cent higher at 44,824.

Before the acquisition, Bharti Airtel and Nettle held 23.04 and 13.69 per cent stake, respectively in Infratel.

“Nettle has acquired an additional equity stake of approximately 4.94 per cent (13.3 crore shares) in Infratel. Accordingly, its equity stake has increased to 18.62 per cent in Infratel,” Bharti Airtel said in the filing.

Indus Tower, which was the country’s largest standalone mobile tower company, has merged with Bharti Infratel. Vodafone Group holds around 28.12 per cent stake in the merged entity.

In a separate transaction, P 5 Asia Holding Investments Mauritius sold 6.65 crore scrips of Bharti Infratel at Rs 215.5 per share, as per the block deal data on BSE.

In two separate transactions on NSE, Edgepoint Global Portfolio and Edgepoint Global Growth & Income Portfolio offloaded total 4.93 crore scrips of Bharti Infratel at an average price of Rs 215.59 per share.

Edgepoint Global Portfolio and Edgepoint Global Growth & Income Portfolio held 3.11 per cent and 1.77 per cent stake, respectively, in Bharti Infratel as public shareholders.